Ripper's letters drove me to the brink of insanity

A DISTRAUGHT woman who says she was driven to the brink of a psychological breakdown after being taunted by deranged Yorkshire Ripper Peter Sutcliffe is campaigning for rules to stop notorious killers tormenting vulnerable women who become their penpals.

Sandra Lester, 56, fears she is one of many women to fall under the spell of Peter Sutcliffe.

She believes women like her, often victims of sexual or physical abuse, contact jailed killers and sex offenders because they feel sorry for them, only to then become infatuated.

Every letter written or received by Sutcliffe at Broadmoor top security mental hospital, is monitored by experts before being posted to his female penpals. However, the women receive no support or advice.

“Peter Sutcliffe has just swapped his hammer for a pen,” says Sandra, who says she first wrote to the mass murderer as an act of Christian charity, believing even a maniac responsible for a five-year killing spree across the north of England deserved some support. They were soon swapping daily letters, sometimes up to 20 pages long, in a relationship fuelled by their shared love of poetry and surrealist painters such as Salvador Dali.

But by the end Sandra felt increasingly manipulated, with Sutcliffe, now 66, phoning her Essex home up to twice a week, asking her to visit him and even suggesting they could marry.

“He told me he had 20 women to consider for visits, but could only choose two at a time. He chose me and a barmaid from Chingford in Essex, but I eventually decided I didn’t want to be part of Sutcliffe’s harem.

“I suffered abuse as a child, I was emotionally vulnerable when I wrote to Sutcliffe, I’d read about him and thought he must be troubled.

“But Peter Sutcliffe and the system in force that allows him to communicate with women like me reduced me to a state of complete mental collapse. In his first letter he asked, ‘Do you live alone?’ He’s looking to exploit women.

“I want them to review the system. The majority of women who write to people like Sutcliffe come from abusive backgrounds and only harm can come from them writing to these people.

“I’m not an idiot, I’m studying for a PhD and I’m an award-winning poet and artist, but writing to Peter Sutcliffe blew my life to bits.”

Sandra said Broadmoor monitors failed to step in and halt the correspondence even when she deliberately told the killer she had suffered abuse and had been raped.

She adds: “Now I want to make a stand. I want vetting to protect vulnerable women. I’ve started an online petition demanding action and I will be writing to David Cameron.”

Stucliffe is incarcerated in Broadmoor mental hospital

Peter Sutcliffe has just swapped his hammer for a pen

Sandra Lester, penpal

Sandra first stopped writing to Sutcliffe in 1993 after a year of correspondence but in 1997, after he was stabbed in the eyes by a fellow patient, she sent him a note saying: “In thought and prayer in this your time of need.”

Sandra explains: “He’s had a lot of time to read. He likes history, philosophy, poetry. That’s the flip side of Peter Sutcliffe that hooks you in to him.”

A spokeswoman for Broadmoor, in Berkshire, said anyone could write to the “responsible clinician” of a detained patient asking for letters to be halted.

She added that mail might also be withheld if it was thought that it could cause distress or danger to anyone, or if it was “considered necessary in the interests of the safety of the patient or for the protection of other persons”.